Over a period of operating time the compressor section of a gas turbine engine may accumulate deposits of ingested material and consequently become dirty. Dirt build up in the compressor will reduce its efficiency; this results in a poorer overall engine efficacy and therefore power output. Accordingly, the compressor requires periodic cleaning (sometimes referred to as “water wash”). There are primarily three types of wash systems: on-line wash system, offline crank wash system, and manual wash system. On-line washing basically consists of a process where by a cleaning fluid is sprayed into the air intake of the engine while running at full speed and loaded. Here, demineralized water is used and the droplets are sized to be large enough so that the drag forces are dominated by the inertia forces that tend to cause the droplets to impinge on the hardware of the compressor and provide the cleaning action. Offline washing is wherein the gas turbine engine spun by an external crank. Manual washing is where the gas turbine engine is shut down, and the gas turbine engine's components are washed manually.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,659,715 issued to Kuesters et al. on Dec. 9, 2003 shows an axial compressor and method of cleaning an axial compressor. In particular, the disclosure of Kuesters et al. is directed toward an axial compressor that includes a nozzle for injecting a cleaning fluid. The cleaning fluid is injected through the nozzles in a flow duct during operation, so that rear blading rows are also cleaned.
The present disclosure is directed toward overcoming known problems and/or problems discovered by the inventors.